"We've been blessed this year. We didn't have any hurricanes, no real bad weather, no hail, anything that could affect the trees." - Joseph Ranatza

The recent chilly weather has delighted Louisiana's citrus farmers, sweetening their oranges, satsumas, Meyer lemons and other fruit and bringing out good color.

Color isn't a good indicator of sweetness but customers think it is, said Alan Vaughn, LSU AgCenter extension agent for Plaquemines Parish, where 500 of the state's 700 acres of citrus are planted. "When it colors up well it's more popular," he said.

As long as winds or hailstorms don't knock the fruit onto the ground and the weather stays chilly rather than frigid, it should be a good crop, said Joseph Ranatza, who harvests about 60 acres of citrus in Jesuit Bend, south of Belle Chasse.

"The season's going pretty good so far. Prices are fairly decent for the first time in a long time," he said. "We've still got a lot of fruit left on the trees. We'll probably go to sometime in January before we harvest it all, unless we get a deep, deep freeze that'd come out of Canada like California's getting now."

That's not likely in the forecastable future, said Danielle Manning, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Slidell.

"If the temperature is 25 degrees for six hours or more continuously, the fruit will go bad," Ranatza said.

Satsumas -- super-sweet, thin-skinned mandarin oranges developed in Japan during the 1500s -- are among the most cold-tolerant citrus trees, but their small fruit is among the most susceptible to freezing weather, according to the LSU AgCenter.

Hugh French, who manages Stella Plantation in Braithwaite, said there are still quite a few satsumas on the 30 acres of satsuma, orange and Meyer lemon trees there.

"The cold weather kind of extended the harvest window," he said. "The ones on the trees, it's kept them sweet and very marketable. But we are getting toward the end of the Satsuma season. The Meyer lemons are about done now. But the navels we'll harvest until probably New Year's."

Ranatza and French, however, both sell mainly to grocery chains. Ranatza sells to Winn Dixie Corp., Whole Foods Corp., Fresh Market Corp., Walmart and Associated Groceries, a chain based in Baton Rouge. French's said his fruit goes to Sunflower and Stop and Shop in Mississippi and Alabama and wholesale to a number of roadside stands.

The small-town nature of Louisiana's citrus business means the fruit can stay tasty for a long time after it's brought home, Vaughn said: "We pick them, and sell them within two or three days of harvest. Once you get good fruit, they'll stay two to three months in refrigeration."

Both farmers said they're getting many more orders than in the past for Meyer lemons, a large, somewhat sweet Chinese hybrid brought to the United States in 1908. Cooking shows have boosted their popularity, French said.

Ranatza said Louisiana-based Abita Brewing Co. has bought satsumas and oranges from him for several years, but bought Meyer lemons and grapefruit for the first time this year. "I'm looking forward to going to the grocery store and buying a six-pack of each to try them out," he said.

Asked whether he gets free samples of the beer, he replied: "I guess they would if I asked them. I figure if they're good enough to buy from me, I'm good enough to buy their product."

Because it is typically sold within days of harvest, locally grown citrus can stay fresh with refrigeration for as along as two or three months, farmers say.NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune Archive

Abita's Grapefruit Harvest beer has been on the shelves for about a week, spokeswoman Beth Harris said Friday. Its Lemon-Wheat Seasonal beer, using Meyer lemons, is sold from May through September and its Satsuma Harvest beer in the summer, she said.

"We buy them at the peak of the harvest and hold on to the juice," she said.

Satsumas and navel oranges are the mainstay of Louisiana's dwindling number of citrus farmers. Most are in Plaquemines Parish, which is kept warm by Gulf waters. Lafourche and Terrebonne are next; the other 14 southern parishes with commercial groves average fewer than 5 acres each, said Alan Vaughn, extension agent for Plaquemines Parish.

Plaquemines was hit hard last year by Hurricane Isaac and even harder by Katrina in 2005. Isaac flooded 200 acres of citrus in Braithwaite, including those at Stella Plantation.

Ranatza said, "We didn't get flooded with Isaac. What Isaac did was blow the fruit off the trees. We lost 85 to 90 percent of the fruit."

Katrina's floods knocked out 80 percent of the parish's citrus business and killed huge numbers of trees. Farm value for citrus fell from $6.3 million in 2004 to $4.5 million in 2005 and $3.6 million the year after, rising in 2007 to $6.4 million.

The past two years each brought less than $5.5 million, according to AgCenter figures.

"We've been blessed this year," Ranatza said. "We didn't have any hurricanes, no real bad weather, no hail, anything that could affect the trees. But we took a tremendous hit last year. We're definitely hoping to make it up this year."